Valentine Days
by Monocole
Summary: Valentine's Day just so happens to be Jenny Flint's favourite holiday. Madame Vastra is a fair study on the holiday of romance.
1. Valentine's Day?

Evilqueenofgallifrey on tumblr gave me an idea for a valentine I could give her: "Jenny teaching Vastra about Valentine's Day and them being generally adorable"

I wrote a few variations. I hope you like a fair few. (;

Please review! I love to know thoughts, even quick ones!

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One might expect Vastra to have experienced Valentine's Day long before Jenny Flint, but one would (as the Madame often found) be wrong. She would hardly bother to point it out, however, for she had been up to more pressing things: namely, sleeping, for somewhere around 5000 years. She'd decided a nice long nap was in order; by the time she was awoken, rather rudely, she was considered a dangerous biopoedal dinosaur. By her own considerations she was something of a Draconian Lady, and thus she became a Madame of many trades.

Madame Vastra hadn't thought she'd miss anything interesting during her nap, but time-travel at least gave her a leg-up for reliving the more interesting past. It was only that Valentine's Day had never held much appeal to her before. She might have been accused of a certain sexual appetite occasionally requiring satiation yet it was little more than that. Casual things, play-things, voracious sampling of any given city's sapphistry—never a matter of the heart. That was, not a matter of the heart until Jenny Flint, thief of the London streets, stole hers in one glance.

So it was that seven months into their— _arrangement_ —the bright and shining day of romance was upon them. Only it was Victorian London, so in truth it dawned grey and drizzling with a general ambiance of smog.

Perhaps it was the morose feeling of the day or the newness of them, the ambiguity of their sweethearted-ness, that inspired Jenny Flint to give her lovely lizard-lady a pass on her very favourite holiday.

She offered a minimal valentine herself: parchment paper, the illustration of a lizard heating itself on a stone by a roaring fire, and a poem.

 _Valentine's:  
_ _A day away afar the hustle and bustle,  
_ _A day to grasp her husk and bust 'til  
_ _Day departs to night come free,  
_ _Quiet and bright and washed in delight—  
_ _Just like she._

Jenny gave it to her Madame as they were out on the town, Vastra's veil covering all but the heat in her eyes, which Jenny could feel anywhere—and as the case was just then: everywhere.

They were nearly finished their meal when Vastra admitted defeat on the occasion, not recalling the importance of such a hall-marked holiday to the people of Victorian London. Jenny was ever so happy to dispense with her knowledge on the subject during their journey home.

Upon their arrival, she showed her Madamde the personal significance of the holiday to one Jennifer Izra Flint—twice, before they even reached the nearest bed. Jenny couldn't be sure, distracted as she was, but she thought her Madame might be reciting poetry with every sweep of the majestic draconian tongue between her legs.

Thus in the end her valentine—which was herself, always herself—came too, and all was right beneath the stars and the London smog.


	2. A Poem a Day

**Author's Note** : In which we get a poem I wrote. Here's to a little fluff.

Leave a review? I love hearing from you!

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For their first full year together, Jenny went easy on the still freshly-woken Madame Vastra and guided her fair verdant love through the day from start to finish.

They awoke in the Madame's bed, flush together with Vastra wrapped in Jenny's warm embrace.

Jenny reached under her pillow and slipped out a lightly-dyed paper edged in a green material reminiscent of scales. She pressed a kiss to one of Vastra's horns as she slipped an arm over the woman and deposited the paper beside her on the pillow.

Another endless moment before the lovely lizard roused enough to pluck up the poem and read it aloud, getting the rhythm right on the first try in a way Jenny had failed during her frenzied writing.

 _When dawns arise_

 _I seek thine eyes_

 _To draw me into daylight._

 _Slumber fades to waking dreams._

 _Against the scales_

 _My fingers trail_

 _Eternity awaits me:_

 _The morn' outlives its slanting beams._

 _Stay with me,_

 _For me with thee_

 _Casts light on dawn and day –_

 _What will you say?_

 _Join me in the dusk,_

 _Hid beneath your husk_

 _Of sheer dark fin'ry:_

 _Shall we make this fine day gay?_

 _What dost thou say,_

 _My love so bright?_

 _Dine me, dance me,_

 _Wit and wine me—_

 _Cast me to this raptured night?_

Jenny cleared her throat and looked away at the final stanza, was quick to state she was nary a poet and had barely writ since her school-days, which had been limited enough. Vastra made a wry comment about her diction—and the impact of dating an immortal time-traveller on her Victorian-estranged vocabulary—but rolled atop her to show the force of her pleasure.

With that Jenny met her raptured night before the sun had risen, and again before they left the bed, then once more before they left the house for a stroll of the city, culminating in an evening meal. A full day with Vastra was an endless one: stories of time past and yet to come; words of worlds so different from her own; characters so diverse of nature and spirit as to press at Jenny's very imagination. She could spend whole lifetimes listening to her timeless new beau.

The raptured night came not quite as she imagined, and yet as often with Vastra, much better:

Vastra wrapped around her tight and made the sorts of low-guttural sounds Jenny very much hoped the neighbours wouldn't hear—mostly. Though it didn't stop Jenny from encouraging such noises and finding her own rapture at the press of cool, scaled skin against her ears.

It was the best Valentine's Day she had ever known—and it wasn't over yet.


End file.
